AlvinofDiaspar
Moderator
You’ve made a case for first colonizing the Moon. Having a base with low gravity, no atmosphere and an abundant fuel source that can be mined, makes the Moon far better at launching humans to other planets and celestial bodies.
It takes robotic missions 6 to 8 months to reach Mars and it’s only that long because they’re being efficient on the payload launching from Earth, given limited budgets. Sending an empty ship to the Moon then filling it up with fuel on the Moon itself will enable continuous propulsion which could get a craft to incredibly high speeds, arriving near Mars in a matter of weeks then firing the rockets on approach to slow it down. A ship with that amount of fuel isn’t feasible from Earth but is from the Moon.
The World is experiencing major changes, including financial and in our priorities so I won’t try to predict how long it’ll be before Humans get to Mars, but in The pre-COVID/BLM timeline, early 2030s was entirely doable if the return to the Moon happened in 2024 as planned.
Actually the moon is volatile-poor (for fuel and life-support) in general (there are ice deposits at the poles, but not necessarily all that much and accessible) - there is no reason to detour to the moon on the way to mars at all - it doesn't make the trip any easier. It makes NO sense to go up the Earth gravity well, get down to the moon and go up another gravity well to get to mars.
Ad Astra is pure celestial mechanics BS (like launch to moon to get to mars to get to neptune - WTF? It's a crappy daddy-issues movie).
AoD
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